Growing Roses in the Disarray
by systematic.star
Summary: Post-apocalyptic setting where a deadly virus has been released on Earth. Ruby has survived the outbreak of this virus and is now trying to find her family in hopes of reuniting with other survivors up north however; a peculiar Asgardian man needs her help as a guide on this realm so he can find his lost object to return home. How will Ruby survive this? Post-Thor... LokixOC


**_Hello_ my pretties!**

**I do not own Loki, the movie _Thor _or _The Avengers_ as much as I would love to have ownership over Loki and the Avengers cast, I sadly do not. :(**

**Read away ~**

* * *

**Zombies & Disagreements**

A shadow flitted in between the crevices of walls and other inanimate objects. Shipping containers were sprouted everywhere creating a maze of sorts to any outsider who had not ventured to this area before. Guttural noises could be heard every so often alerting the shadow to act quickly for she was not alone.

The girl's shadow hovered behind the stairwell. As she stilled her silent movements she stole a glance outside the large shattered window that painted the view of a broken shell of a city. Smoke tore through the sky at intervals and debris stained the streets. The only trace of life was found in limping upright bodies that looked like the interior of a week old coffin. These victims occupied the traumatised city walls.

Her head looked above the skyline to observe the state of the storm that had arrived spontaneously. It grew heavy and angry; its brows coming together with more rage than it did a solid half an hour ago. Her leather watch warned her that it was getting late; the hour hand had shifted past five.

A blinding streak of lightning shredded the sky leaving an echo just outside the loading dock of the warehouse. Her head turned to the sound of moaning and shuffling. A pair of switchblades engaged her gloved hands, preparing for the inevitable onslaught of horror.

She dashed up the steel steps and hoisted her legs onto the railing, which she then pushed off to land on top of the storage container. She treaded lightly watching the small group of three 'zombies' scuttle beneath her. A long breath was taken and drawn. The mere action of filling and suspending the air within her lungs was a pre-battle therapy that did wonders to her nerves.

_They are beyond being victims. They cannot be saved._

She rotated the switchblades in her hands getting a sturdy grip on the handle before taking a step off the container. Her feet sliced the air for a split second before she felt solid ground meet her legs. Not a breath passed before she sliced the unsuspecting zombie's head clean off from its perch. The other flesh defiled creature to her right swung wildly at her chest. The girl feigned to the right and rotated sending her behind the creatures back. Her left hand settled on its shoulder whilst her other hand covered its eyes before she expertly twisted its head, resulting in a sickening snap and an immobile zombie.

Her breath grew shallow as she turned around for the third zombie. _Where did it go?_ She thought trying to expel her panic. She raised her switchblades in front of her as she heard a snarl from her left. She twirled keeping her fighting stance when the creature jumped from the dim lighting to tackle her. Before she could attack, the floor collided with her backpack. She held no hesitation as she used both of her legs to kick the rotting creature off of her torso. The zombie cackled aloud but was silenced by a flying dagger embedded in its eye socket, which came from behind her.

She heaved herself off the floor to face the unknown threat that defeated the tormented creature; however she did not expect to see this.

A man, who was undoubtedly handsome, was fighting off other zombies that had gathered around him. He was fitted in green and black armour that made him look regal. His dark black hair was pushed back behind his ears, leaving his clean forehead bare to the storms after glow. He was quick with a dagger and equally as quick in hand-to-hand combat.

The girl was fascinated with this other survivor. He saved her from the zombie but she wasn't exactly sure if he was a friend or a foe. She decided it was safe to hide until he was alone. She climbed the container she jumped down from to attack the zombies and crouched low to its surface, trying to make her form blend as much as possible.

The unidentified man lifted his daggers from the zombie's dead bodies and sheathed them in his… what looked like a cloak. He surveyed his surroundings with a quick glance before striding down the main aisle to where the second warehouse lied. She eased herself out of her crouch before slipping off the container and silently landing on her feet. Her legs crept near his large body before she grew bold enough to walk out of her hiding spot and right behind him.

Little did she know that the man she was stalking was watching from behind her. He witnessed her sneaking upon the copied image of himself that he generated using his superior sorcery and watched with a keen interest as the girl whipped a knife to 'his' throat.

The girl releases her switchblade and holds it to the man's throat. Her voice ready to demand for answers when the man flashes before disappearing. She is momentarily stunned before her senses kick in at the feeling of a metallic object on her throat. She twists her neck far enough for her eyes to see that the man that was in front of her was actually behind her now and he wasn't a hologram but a live being. She breathes in deeply before stepping on the man's toe and bringing her blade up to the man's throat, mirroring his action. The man releases a deep chuckle as she feels his blade press against her throat.

"Who are you? How did you do that?" She snarls at his smirking face. _Dammit this guy is stunning up close. _She thought bitterly as her threatening tone wavered.

"I could ask you the same thing." He coolly replies. His smirk widens as he flicks her wrist and twists her body around so her back is against his chest and his arm is securely around her throat. Her armed hand is trapped by her side by his stern grip. "Now you seem to be in an unsavoury position so I suggest that you answer my questions first." He waits for her to nod before he proceeds. "What is your name?" He raises his chin higher, giving himself an air of authority.

She hesitates for a second but soon decides that she has nothing much to lose as she is at the disadvantage. "…My name is Ruby, and yours?" She bravely inquires.

"I did not give you permission to ask any questions," he shook her small frame and turned her around so she was forced to stare into his hypnotising blue orbs. He pressed the blade against her skin rather deeply to the point that when she gulped the knife drew blood. His lips widened at the action, revealing his white canines. "Where am I? What realm is this?"

Ruby stared up at the imposing – yet beautiful, which she admitted reluctantly – man. "Realm?" she asked baffled by the word. _Clearly the virus got to him and it did something to his brain._ She scoffed.

"Do not mock me mortal. I asked you a question!" His voice grew as his proud chin rose even higher.

Ruby ummed to herself before replying, "We are on Earth," her quiet voice turned bitter as she spat out "or what is left of it."

The man released the blade on her throat as he squeezed her wrist making her drop her switchblade. Her eyes went wide at the action and she pressed her eyes shut, anticipating her death.

She waited what felt like decades before she heard a hoarse chuckle. She popped an eye open and she found her captor staring curiously at her through beautiful blue eyes. "I am not going to kill you if that is what you think. However I have use of you, unless you prove otherwise then I will kill you." Ruby's eyebrows scrunched in confusion as she pondered what the peculiar man just said.

"You know this place well I presume?" He looked to her expressionless face before continuing, "Good. Since you seem to be the only competent living creature on this barren realm that you call… Earth," His tongue seemed to taste the word as it left his mouth, "you will be my guide."

Ruby stared at this obstinate man who just spoke to her as if she was nothing greater than a pack mule. "Excuse me!" She shouted, as she gathered her pride. "I am _no one's_ guide and you do not own me. So go try your luck elsewhere buddy because you are _not_ going to make me show you the lovely desecrating wonders of this _realm_." Her voice sneers the last word, placing much more venom into it than she intended.

The man chuckled darkly as he replied, "Oh, but of course you will. You have a greater understanding of the current circumstances that surround this place and forgive me if I am wrong," his face clearly said that he wasn't apologetic, "but I believe that you are searching for something or someone as well." He raised an eyebrow as Ruby's dishevelled hair covered her face. His greedy smile went unnoticed by her as he continued to use his silver tongue to coax her into agreeing with him. "I could help you in your search if you help me find what I am looking for." He paused and waited for her response. Silence greeted him as Ruby was trying desperately not to agree with his soothing voice. _Lies… He'll use you and then dispose of you Ruby._

Ruby voiced her thoughts to him in a low voice.

_This one is tricky._ The man pondered as he worked his silver tongue again. "Oh, but you have my word. I will help you find whatever it is that you are searching for, _if_, you aid me in my search for the object I seek."

"You lie." Ruby retorted harshly.

A look of feigned hurt crossed the man's features. "I do not lie, for I give you my word." _Though my word is a lie, _thought the man smugly.

Ruby raised her chin and pushed her hair out of her face, glaring as she said, "Why should I trust the word of a man whose name I don't even know?"

He laughed with a full sound. _This one has teeth._ "I like your fire, so I will tell you my name."

Ruby raised a brow as she tugged her arms free from the man's grasp and crossed her arms, waiting patiently for this deranged man to answer her first question.

"My name is Loki Odinson, and I am from Asgard." He stood tall as he gave his little introduction like a child would on show and tell day.

"Well then _Loki,"_ she spat his name, "I'm terribly sorry but I have other plans that don't involve babysitting your ass."

Before Loki could snarl at the girl's insolence she shoved him backwards, which surprised him, and then punched him in the face, further surprising the God. He grinned evilly as she kicked him in the stomach before bounding away to the safety of the shadows.

"Ruby…" He called out to her as he stepped carefully around the zombie carcasses. Ruby mentally kicked herself at telling this crazy man her real name.

He treaded lightly trying to figure out which direction she went. Loki's frustration grew as he couldn't find her but he stopped walking as he spotted a purple footprint that he assumed belonged to her, its size was minute compared to the stumps that the zombies acquired through their mutation. He smirked wildly as he followed the footsteps down a small corridor that lead to the second warehouse. A door could be seen at the end of the vestibule, its hinges ajar; smiling at Loki's presence, inviting him into the room that appeared to house the stubborn girl. He shoved the door aside as his eyes stripped the room for Ruby. A small desk and scattered paper filled the shanty room.

_I was tricked by some mortal imbecile who does not know her place._

A small growl escaped his lips. His ears registered the door as it made contact with the wood behind it. His head swivelled in the door's direction and his languid body followed soon after.

"Over here." A feminine voice cooed behind him.

Loki turned his torso around whilst his right hand lunged for his pocket, hunting for a dagger. He saw a tendril of brown hair before his hand was struck, knocking the dagger from his grip. He nimbly avoided a knee to the groin tutting at her dirty trick.

Ruby's expression turned angry at his scolding of her attempt to knee him in the pelvic region. She was not a child and this was most certainly not a play fight regardless of how he was treating her. She lunged at his chest, catching him by surprise before rolling off his torso and jumping to the balls of her feet.

Loki placed a hand on his face, stifling the laugh that threatened to consume him.

_This girl is entertaining._ He thought. _If a fight is what she's after, then I shall give the lady what she wants._ He rolled backwards landing in an offensive crouch before relinquishing two new daggers from his body.

_Shit._

Ruby gulped before reacting to the flying daggers that were coming straight for her. She ducked from one dagger but sidestepped a little too late for the next one and received a shallow cut along her arm. She hissed in annoyance and pulled out her switchblade from her combat boots.

_Fine, he wants to play dirty, I'll show him dirty._

Loki raised an eyebrow in appraisal towards the fact that this mortal could narrowly dodge his daggers, for he _never_ missed, and at where the young lady stored her weapons, before he found himself blocking and ducking from her blade.

It was an intricate dance of sidestepping and lunging at open spaces, unprotected fronts and unguarded sides that had Ruby panting with exertion.

A laugh crawled past Loki's lips at the thrill of fighting with someone new, for he didn't often get the chance to spar with others as they tended to not want to associate with him but rather his ever popular brother, _Thor._ His mind snarled in disgust at his entire situation regarding his heritage. He was meant to be the rightful King of Asgard. _He_ was meant to sit on the throne and rule the Asgardians. He shivered at how close he came to achieving it.

The clash of metal brought his mind to his present predicament regarding him being stranded on a realm that was just as distraught as his mental well-being. Loki had enough of Ruby's jesting and wished to put an end to this futile bout.

Ruby raised her switchblade preparing it for a diagonal cut to Loki's chest when he butted her head with his, knocking her roughly into something behind her. A splintered crack sounded from the object as she tried to clear her disorientated mind.

Sweat dripped into her eyes, blinding her from her opponent's movement. Loki noticed the distraction and tackled her to the ground. He turned her switchblade on her pulsating neck, straddling her other free arm and thighs to keep her restrained from getting any ideas.

It was a bit intimate for his liking however he didn't argue as she seemed to surrender by relaxing her taut arm that held the blade. He was about to taunt her but found he couldn't as he was breathing just as hard as she was. As he parted his dry lips to speak, Ruby put all her force into her elbow as it connected with his face. She proceeded to lunge until the tables were turned and she was now sitting on his chest, her fallen switchblade gracing her hands yet again however, it was now pointed towards his entrancing blue eyes that were filled with endless mischief.

"No need to be hasty." Loki joked as he threw his hands up above him in the universal sign of surrender. Ruby struggled to control her laboured breathing and climbing heart rate. She let out a strangled breath as she blew away a few strands of her now loose hair. She was unaware that her hold on the feisty extra-terrestrial being had loosened, thus allowing him leeway.

Loki seized this opportunity to use his tall frame to shove Ruby back to the floor where he straddled not only her legs but both of her arms as well. He smiled in perverse satisfaction at her vulnerable position. He leaned closer to her neck before letting out a laboured breath of his own. Ruby shuddered at the closeness.

"Like I said: there's no need to be hasty." She felt him smile into her neck. A shiver travelled down her sore spine and back up however, it wasn't in repulsion but something else. Her thoughts were pulled away by the bare fact that Loki was indeed powerful. He viewed this as child's play and not a serious fight. The best thing for her to do was to surrender while he wasn't in a foul mood and hope that she'll get to keep all her limbs in the near future.

"Okay, I give up." Ruby huffed in exhaustion as he straddled her small frame on the floor. He was still breathing heavily from the exertion of the fight, though he would never admit it to anyone that he felt tired after a spar with a _mortal_. His mind snapped back to the girl – Ruby she said her name was, as she continued to verbally abuse him even though he, by rights had the upper hand.

"…you better listen here and answer my questions if you want me to go along with your deranged plans." The look she gave him made Loki think of an angry kitten – full of threats, empty in the carrying out of them.

"You may tag along with me on my travels to my previously made arrangements and then and _only _then will I start to consider helping you find this _thing_ that you need so badly. If you so much as try to kill me, just remember that you need me more than I need you. Just keep that in mind pretty boy." Her glare was only half-hearted as she struggled to maintain her steady breathing under the weight of a full grown man.

Loki blinked before he gathered his wits, "Do you think I am pretty?" he smirked at her discomfort with the question.

Ruby was tired with the mind games that this man so obviously thrived off. "Just get off of me and I will consider helping you." She tried to sit up but it was a vain attempt as she would have had the same luck trying to move a mountain off of her body. She looked up at the man responsible for her irritated state to find him staring heatedly at her.

"I will remove myself from your personal space once you agree to help me. Not consider, but agree." His silver tongue fluidly spoke keeping a stern composure in an attempt to communicate the weight of his situation. Ruby didn't respond as she inwardly laughed at what he had said. _So he does know about personal space._ She was in deep thought about this stranger who was able to effortlessly beat her to a pulp.

Loki grew weary from her silence. He ensured himself that he would be given a response by pressing his weight into her ribcage, causing Ruby to snap her focus back to his attention.

"I guess I don't really have a choice do I?" She sighed as she looked past his head to the dismantled fan hanging from the ceiling. The world was in chaos, her family unaccounted for, and survival was now considered a bleak sentimental hope. How could one man change these outlooks?

"Could you please get off of me now?" Ruby pointed out her stuck form with her eyes flicking to his legs and back to his face. He just watched her struggle underneath his body before deciding that she was telling the truth. His face relaxed into a mocking smile.

"Of course my lady," Loki spoke in a refined manner as he gracefully hopped off of her, dusting his clothes with the utmost care.

Ruby eyed him as she shakily stood up using the broken table in the room as support. _When did we break the table?_ Her brain was still a bit hazy to the finer details of their disagreement but it still did register the pain in her left arm and her lower back. _Great, just what I need._

"We better get going before it gets too dark outside and before those zombies find out that we're still here." Ruby stated as she stretched out her sore joints, pointing to the door where they entered from. "I just don't want to be out here with them for too long." She shuddered at the thought of how many virus victims could be wandering loose outside. She hadn't seen a survivor in _months_.

_Maybe having a comrade, no matter how unwanted, wouldn't be so bad. _Ruby thought as she headed out of the wrecked room –no thanks to their little spar. Her backpack that she had previously filled with canned food and water bottles did not help her ignore the pain that tore through her back. Still she strode purposefully down the corridor to the end of the warehouse where the safety of her small temporary home that she affectionately labelled 'base' was situated.

Loki looked distastefully at the dead zombie bodies that carpeted the floor of the warehouse as he followed suit behind his guide. His tongue clucked in repulsion as one of their legs twitched. "I hope this place that you are staying at is more accommodating than _this_." He scoffed at the mutilated warehouse that to Ruby looked more like a war zone from a video game rather than a shipping container placement.

Ruby shook her head ruefully and sighed at his wishful thinking.

* * *

**_So..._** tell me your thoughts about this story, I love opinions as they lead to improvements on my end.

_**NOTE**:_

**This story/idea/chapter was inspired by a dream I had the other day about a post-zombie-apocalypse and there being Loki trying to find a certain object that he so direly needed to return back to his home, Asgard (many of you know what the object I speak of is *wink wink, nudge nudge*).****It was just so vivid in my mind that I had to write it all down.**

Well I hope you enjoyed my bout of weirdness. At least I have an interesting story to tell my class when I get back from school holidays; that I stayed up to the wee hours writing post-apocalyptic themed stories whilst all of my friends were out and about in society being normal teenagers.

xx Please review :) xx


End file.
